Following what is presumed to be the last of the THQ bankruptcy auction proceedings for the rights to the failed publisher's remaining games intellectual properties, St Louis' based teamPixel has issued a statement to their crowdfunding backers that they have been unsuccessful in securing the homeworld franchise.

TeamPixel had taken to the Kickstarter, and Indiegogo platforms hoping to collect enough pledges to secure the rights to the acclaimed space strategy franchise, but will now be providing refunds to all backers (thanks Games On Net).

Homeworld will escape the THQ bankruptcy to a new home, however, that home will not be with teamPixel, LLC. The auction for the Homeworld license ended April 15, 2013, and while we reached qualified bidder status for the bankruptcy auction, we were unable to raise the necessary funds to remain competitive against the other parties at the auction. We hope you will join us in supporting Homeworld's new owners in building a future for the franchise. We anticipate an announcement of the new owner to be made within a couple weeks and for the sale to be finalized around mid-May. Words cannot describe how honored we are to have been supported by so many in the community.

TeamPixel had intended to retool a version of Homeworld for iOS and Android devices, and move forward on third full Homeworld game for PC, Mac and Linux, but the studio's relative inexperience in game development had been a cause for doubt.

Fans of the series can perhaps be hearted by the fact that someone else was willing to pay in excess of the at least US$70-$80K that teamPixel had managed to raise, suggesting that a larger publisher could be intending to shake off the mothballs.

In previous THQ auction proceedings, publisher SEGA acquired Homeworld developer Relic Entertainment, along with the Company of Heroes IP.

Other THQ properties under the hammer, with sales also expected to finalise in the next few weeks are Darksiders, Red Faction, and the MX Motocross IP, as well as two bundles of smaller brands, that include the likes of Titan Quest, Supreme Commander, Full Spectrum Warrior, de Blob, and Nexuiz.

The IP was owned by THQ, Sega didn't want the IP just the Relic studio. Hopefully they are the ones who aqcuired it, and are going to eventually let Relic work on HW3.

A few parties held off on bidding on the IP's at the first auction because they wanted to bid on them separately at a lower price. Crytek recently spoke about wanting to aqcuire the Darksiders IP so that the ex-vigil team could continue work on the franchise with the backing of an established company like Crytek.

Personally, Darksiders 3 running on Cry Engine 4 sounds amazing.

I personally didn't want TeamPixel touching Homeworld, they are fans yeah, but they would NEVER do it justice, they would ruin the series in more ways than any big time developer could have, and homeworld on touch screens would have been crap.